Twenty Years Ago in The Colorado Statesman … With just a month until the November election, crucial swing-state Colorado was in the spotlight and was turning into a crossroads for presidential candidates and other national politicians.

Thirty-five Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … Former U.S. Rep. Wayne Aspinall declared that Colorado was “back in the big leagues” as he introduced divisive Interior Secretary James Watt at the annual Club 20 banquet in Grand Junction.

The Great Donald Trump Pivot is still very much in progress.
Who knows where his position on illegal immigration is going.
If he does any more specials with Sean Hannity, he’s liable to replace his signature border wall idea with a big open gate in El Paso manned by volunteers from Welcome Wagon.

Thirty Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … Cities across the country were facing challenges in the face of economic pressures — a recent survey showed that 60 percent of 660 American cities were facing budget deficits in 1986 — but Denver was not demoralized, said Mayor Federico Peña in his State of the City address. “We will not decline. We are optimizing our resources so that basic services can be maintained. And we have a local economy that, while presently weak, is still basically sound and diverse,” Peña said.

Thirty-Five Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … Gov. Dick Lamm hadn’t decided yet whether he planned to run for a third term in 1982, but the Democrat conceded he could be unseated by Colorado Republicans, who had said their major goal in the next year was retaking the governor’s mansion. “Oh, sure,” Lamm said in an interview with The Statesman. “I think anyone in public office is beatable, especially in these very shifting times. You go into any campaign — no matter how high or seemingly unbeatable you are — with at least a third chance of losing just because of the vagaries in a campaign and the kind of things which can happen. You’ve involved in a process that you only have marginal control over.” …